"Kava, Alex - Maggie 04 - At the Stroke of Madness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kava Alex)

He and Dr. Patterson had gotten carried away on a case last November. Exchanged a kiss. No, it was more than that. It was...it didn't matter. They had decided it was a mistake. They had agreed to forget about it. O'Dell was looking at him as if expecting an answer, and only then did Tully realize he must have missed a question. Patterson's fault.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"She was up in Connecticut for her grandmother's funeral and no one's seen or heard from her since late Saturday."
"Seems odd that Dr. Patterson would be so concerned about a patient. Is there a personal connection?"
"Now, Agent Tully, it would be highly unprofessional of me to ask Dr. Patterson that question." She looked up at him and smiled, which didn't prevent him from rolling his eyes at her. O'Dell might be organized, but when it came to protocol and procedure or sometimes even common courtesy, she conveniently forgot to look at whose toes she might be stepping on. "Actually, just between the two of us, I think it's a bit odd, too."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I told her I'd check it out, so I guess I'll check it out." But O'Dell sounded nonchalant about it. "Do you know any law enforcement officers in Connecticut I could call?" she asked him, her attention already on another red-tabbed file folder she had missed on her desk. She picked it up, opened it for a quick glance, then added it to her briefcase.
"Where in Connecticut?"
"Let's see. I know she told me." O'Dell had to flip through the faxed pages, and Tully wondered why she didn't remember the basic details from the phone call. Or was her mind simply already focused on her backyard retreat? Somehow he doubted that. His bet was that she was focused on the contents of those red-tabbed file folders, stuffed safely in her briefcase. "Here it is," she finally said.
"She was staying in Meriden, but the funeral was in Wallingford."
"Wallingford?"
O'Dell double-checked. "Yes. Do you know anyone?"
"No, but I've been through that area. It's beautiful. You know who might be able to tell you who to call? Our buddy Detective Racine is from there."
"Our buddy? I think if you know where she's from, she's your buddy."
"Come on, O'Dell, I thought you two made nice.. .or at least called a truce." The D.C. detective and O'Dell clashed like night and day, but on a case almost a year ago, Julia Racine ended up saving O'Dell's mother. Whatever their differences, the two women now seemed to have what he'd call a healthy tolerance of each other.
"You know my mother has lunch with Racine once a month?"
"Really? That's nice."
"I don't even have lunch with my mother once a month."
"Maybe you should."
O'Dell frowned at him and went back to the faxed pages. "I suppose I could just call the field office."
Tully shook his head. For a smart woman his partner could be annoyingly stubborn.
"So what was this Begley woman seeing Dr. Patterson for?"
O'Dell looked at him over the faxed pages. "You know Gwen can't tell me that. Patient confidentiality."
"It might help to know how kooky she is."
"Kooky?" Another frown. He hated when she did that, especially when it made him feel like he was being unprofessional, even when she was right.
"You know what I mean. It could help to know what she's capable of doing. Like, for instance, is she suicidal?"
"Gwen seemed concerned that she may have gotten involved with a man. Someone she met up there. And that she might actually be in some danger."
"She was there for how long?"
O'Dell shuffled through the pages. "She left the District last Monday, so it's been a week."
"How did she get involved with a man in less than a week? And you said she was there for a funeral? Who meets someone at a funeral? I can't even pick up a woman at the Laundromat."
She smiled at him, quite an accomplishment. O'Dell hardly ever smiled at his attempts at humor. Which meant the good mood lurked close to the surface.
"Let me know if you need any help, okay?" he offered, and now she looked at him with suspicion and he wondered, not for the first time, if Dr. Patterson had confided in O'Dell about their Boston tryst. Geez, tryst wasn't right. That made it sound.. .tawdry. Tawdry wasn't right, either. That made it sound...O'Dell was smiling at him again. "What?"
"Nothing."
He got up to leave. Wanting her to believe his offer had been genuine, he added, "I'm serious, O'Dell. Let me know if you need any help. I mean with any of your cases, not with the backyard digging. Bad knee, remember?"
"Thanks," she said, but there was still a bit of a smile.
Oh, yeah, she knew. She knew something.
CHAPTER 6
Wallingford, Connecticut
Lillian Hobbs loved her Mondays. It was the one time she left Rosie alone during the busy rush hours, steaming milk for lattes, collecting sticky quarters for cheese Danishes and the New York Times. Not a problem. According to Rosie, the busier, the better. After all, it had been Rosie's idea to add a coffee bar to their little bookstore.
"It'll bring in business," Rosie had promised. "Foot traffic we might not get otherwise."
Foot traffic was just the thing Lillian had dreaded. And so at first she had revolted. Well, maybe revolted was too strong a word. Lillian Hobbs had never really revolted against anything in her forty-six years of life. She simply hadn't seen the wisdom in Rosie's side enterprise. In fact, she worried that the coffee bar would be a distraction. That it would bring in the gossipmongers who would rather make up their own stories than purchase one off their shelves.
But Rosie had been right. Again. The coffee crowd had been good for business. It wasn't just that they cleaned them out of the daily New York Times and USA TODAY. There were the magazine sales, and the occasional paperbacks that got picked up on impulse. Soon the regular coffee drinkers-even the mocha lattes with extra whipped cream and the espresso addicts-were browsing the shelves and wandering back into the store after work and on the weekends. Sometimes bringing their families or their friends. Okay, so foot traffic hadn't been such a bad thing, after all.
Yes, Rosie had been right.
Actually, Lillian didn't mind admitting that. She knew Rosie was the one with a head for business. Business was Rosie's forte and books were Lillian's. That's why they made such excellent partners. She didn't even mind Rosie rubbing her nose in it every once in a while. How could she mind when she was allowed to revel in her own passion every single day of the week? But Mondays were the best, like having Christmas once a week. Christmas sitting in a crammed, dark storage room, soothed by her cup of hazelnut coffee and armed with a box cutter.
Opening each box was like ripping into a precious gift. At least that's what it felt like for Lillian, opening each new shipment of books, pushing back the cardboard flaps and taking in that aroma of ink and paper and binding that could so easily transport her to a whole different world. Whether it was a shipment of eighteenth-century history books or a boxful of Harlequin romances or the latest New York Times bestseller, it didn't matter. She simply loved the feel, the smell, the sight of a box of books. What could be more heavenly?
Except that this Monday the stacks of ready and waiting cartons couldn't keep Lillian's mind from wandering. Roy Morgan, who owned the antique store next door, had raced in about an hour ago, breathless, ranting and raving and talking crazy. With his face flushed red-Lillian had noticed even his earlobes had been blazing-and his eyes wild, Roy looked as though he would have a stroke. Either that, or he was having a mental breakdown. Only Roy was probably the sanest person Lillian knew.
He kept stumbling over his words, too. Talking too fast and too choppy. Like a man panicked or in a frenzy. Yes, like a man who was losing his mind. And what he was saying certainly sounded like he had gone mad.
"A woman in a barrel," he said more than once. "They found her stuffed in a barrel. A fifty-five-gallon drum. Just east of McKenzie Reservoir. Buried under a pile of brown-stone in the old McCarty rock quarry."
It sounded like something out of a suspense thriller. Something only Patricia Cornwell or Jeffery Deaver would create.
"Lillian," Rosie called from the door of the storage room, making Lillian jump. "They have something on the news. Come see."